Field of Blood

'Oh friar,' he murmured. 'What happens if they can't trust you? What happens if they shouldn't?'

'Evening, Brother. Talking to yourself? You must want company?'

The friar took his hands away. 'Come in Godbless, there is enough pie for two.'

After the meal was finished, Athelstan left Godbless to clear up the kitchen. He took the keys and went across to the church intent on going up the tower, sitting there and studying stars. He'd revel in their glory, let their sheer vastness and majesty clear his mind. He had the key in the church door when he heard the scrape of steel and whirled round. There were five in all, masked and cowled, the leader standing slightly forward from the rest. He wore a red hood and a blue mask with slits for his eyes, nose and mouth.

'Well, good evening, Brother Athelstan.' The voice was taunting. He gave the most mocking bow. 'Off to study the stars, are we? Perhaps I should join you, it's the nearest I'll get to heaven.'

Athelstan felt behind him and turned the key in the lock. If necessary, he would flee into the church then lock and bar the door behind him.

'You know me?' Athelstan tried to control his fear.

'I understand your good friend the coroner, Sir John Cranston, wishes words with the vicar of hell?'

Athelstan relaxed. He had met this reprobate before and knew he posed no danger.

'Why do you come with swords and clubs?' Athelstan asked. 'I walk your streets daily.'

'So you do, Brother.' The vicar of hell resheathed his sword. 'Whether it be a visit to an alehouse or those strange creatures at the Barque of St Peter.'

He took off his mask and pushed back his hood, revealing a tanned, sardonic face and oiled black hair, tied in a queue behind. A pearl dangled from one ear lobe, his clean-shaven face had soft, even girlish features, except for the wry twist to the mouth and those ever-shifting eyes.

'We always have to be so careful with Sir Jack. I mean, here I am, Brother, a former priest, a sometime Jack-the-lad at whose feet all the crimes in London are laid.'

'Cranston's a man of honour,' Athelstan retorted. 'One day, sir, he'll catch you and you'll hang.'

'Oh no, I won't, Brother: that's why I brought my boys along, just in case old Jack stands hidden in the shadows with some archers from the Tower. I understand you've been there.' He turned and looked over his shoulder. 'Guard the alleyway,' he ordered softly. 'Let anyone come and go. But, if there's any sign of danger, give the usual signal. Brother Athelstan, shall we go into church?'

The shadowy figures behind the vicar melted into the darkness. Athelstan turned the key and went in. He led his unexpected visitor up the nave and into the sanctuary where he lit every available candle. The vicar of hell made him open the sacristy and the narrow coffin door which led into the cemetery.

'Just in case,' the rogue grinned, clapping Athelstan on the shoulder, 'I have to leave a little more speedily than I came.'

He sat down on the altar boys' bench but kept his head back, hidden in the dancing shadows.

'I was a priest once, Athelstan.' The vicar picked up the little hand bell. 'How does it go?' He rang the bell. 'Three times for the sanctus.' He rang it again. 'One to warn the faithful that the consecration is near.' Once more he shook the bell. 'Three times for the host; three times for the chalice and finally for communion: Agnus Dei, Qui tollis peccata mundi …'

'Don't blaspheme!' Athelstan protested.

'I am not blaspheming, Brother. Just remembering. I would have been a good priest. Like you. Ah, but the lure of the flesh, the world and the devil. Anyway, I like your church. You certainly have built a parish here, Brother. I remember the previous incumbent, William Fitzwolfe. Now, he was a wicked bastard!'

'Why have you come?' Athelstan sat on the altar steps facing him.

'Sir John wants to see me.'

'Then go and visit him yourself.'

The vicar of hell laughed. 'What is it you want, Brother? And I'll be gone.' He opened his purse and shook out some coins.

'I don't want your money.'

'Take it as an offering and tell me what you want.'

'Alice Brokestreet,' Athelstan began. 'She worked in a tavern, the Merry Pig, which is also a brothel.'

'I know it well. She stabbed a clerk with a firkin-opener, pierced him dead. A foul-tempered woman! Now I understand she'll see Mistress Vestler hang.'

'You know of the incident?'

'I was there when it happened, it was murder.'

'And Mistress Vestler?'

'A secretive one, our tavern-mistress: keeps herself to herself. I approached her on one occasion.' 'For what?'

'To see if we could do business together, moving goods around London. Perhaps hire one or two of my girls for her house but she refused.'

'And you know nothing of a barge which comes down the Thames at night and moors on the mud flats near the Paradise Tree?'

The vicar of hell laughed softly.

'The river is not my concern, Brother Athelstan: it belongs to people like the fisher of men. In my new vocation, friar, you have to be careful you do not tread on other people's toes. It's the only way you keep alive. However, I'll tell you one thing, I give it to you free: the corpses found in Black Meadow? Bartholomew Menster?' The vicar of hell clicked his tongue. 'Now, Bartholomew was a clerk, a royal official, yet he approached one of my associates. He asked what price would he pay if a large chunk of solid gold came into his possession!'

'What?' Athelstan leaned forward.

'Oh, it's common enough, Brother. Stealing a cup, a jewelled plate, a chalice or a pyx. You can't very well go down to a goldsmith and hand it over. The same goes for a slab of pure gold. Questions will be asked! It's treason to take treasure trove and not declare it to the Crown.'

'And Bartholomew Menster asked this? When?'

'Oh, at the beginning of June.'

'But the gold was never produced?'

'We were very interested but there's an eternity of difference between talk of gold and actually owning it.'

Suddenly, on the night air, came a sharp, piercing whistle. Athelstan jumped to his feet and went to the mouth of the rood screen.

'Pax et bonum,Brother,' came the whisper.

Athelstan turned but the vicar of hell had gone.

'Pax et bonum,'Athelstan replied. 'May Christ smile on you.'

He went and locked the coffin door and the sacristy and walked down the church. Godbless and Thaddeus were sitting on the steps. The beggarman stared up at him.

'I thought I heard a commotion, Brother, so I came out.'

'Nothing,' Athelstan replied. 'Nothing but shadows in the night, Godbless.' 'Are you well, Brother?'

Athelstan started. Benedicta came out of the alleyway, a lantern in one hand, in the other a linen parcel wrapped in twine.

'I've baked some bread,' she said.

'You shouldn't be out,' Athelstan replied.

'I was restless.' She pulled back her cloak. Athelstan glimpsed the Welsh stabbing dirk in her belt. 'I have friends in Southwark, no one would lift a hand against me.'

Athelstan went across to his house. He had given up any idea of studying the stars. Godbless had cleared the kitchen table and the lord of the alleyways was now stretched out before the fire-grate. Athelstan put the bread in the small buttery. He filled three cups of ale and shared them out.

'Why are you restless?' he asked.

'For poor Eleanor's sake.' Benedicta chewed her lip. 'It's so sad to see someone so young, so deeply in love.' She smiled. 'I understand you went to see Veronica the Venerable?'

'Ah yes.' Athelstan went to fetch the grimoire from his chancery bag. 'She had this, a relic from William Fitzwolfe, our former priest.'